They Don’t Sleep There Anymore

Muddy street where the refugees used to sleep

The refugees who have been sleeping on my street have vanished. I came home a few days ago and was surprised to see all of their stuff was gone and they were nowhere to be found. The only thing remaining was one of the soggy cardboard boxes they used to sleep on.

We all speculated as to where they might have gone. Maybe it was the police, or maybe they went into the villages to look for work? After two months of sleeping in the dirt, shivering in the rain, and waiting for an appointment at the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), and they just disappear. Where on Earth do a dozen refugees disappear to? Dadaab.

[…] the refugee population at Dadaab has swelled to nearly 300,000, virtually all Somali, making it the largest refugee complex in the world, United Nations officials here say, and one of Kenya’s largest cities, dusty and spread out.

From the stories the refugees have told me about their countries I can only imagine what kind of horrible situations they were running from. Sadly, after reading a fewmorearticles about Dadaab, I can’t help but think where they’re going isn’t going to be much better.